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Booker T. Washington National Monument
History & Culture
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Tuskegee University |
Washington sitting at his desk at Tuskegee Institute. |
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"I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time."
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Booker T. Washington NM commemorates the birthplace of America's most prominent African American educator and orator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The property evokes an 1850s middle class tobacco farm, representative of Booker T. Washington's enslaved childhood at the Burroughs farm. He was born in 1856 to the Burroughses' cook, Jane and lived on the farm throughout the Civil War. Compared to their Franklin County neighbors, the Burroughses were an upper middle class family evidenced by their combined slave and land holdings. They produced tobacco as a cash crop and grew other subsistence crops like flax, potatoes, and grains for family sustenance. Washington lived in the farm's one-room kitchen cabin with his mother and two half siblings. As a small child he brought water to the men in the fields, carried the books of the Burroughses' daughters books to school, and transported grain to the local mill. more . . .
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| ![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509122156im_/http://www.nps.gov/commonspot/images/clear.gif) | ![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509122156im_/http://www.nps.gov/commonspot/images/clear.gif) |
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![Head shot of Booker T. Washington Head shot of Booker T. Washington](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509122156im_/http://www.nps.gov/ner/customcf/apps/CMS_HandF/Pictures/BOWA_BTW1-highlight.jpg) Booker T. Washington The Great Educator more... | | ![Face of Booker T. Washington Face of Booker T. Washington](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509122156im_/http://www.nps.gov/ner/customcf/apps/CMS_HandF/Pictures/BOWA_booker-t-washington-65.jpg) Dr. Booker T. Washington Legends of Tuskegee more... | |
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![Stars on the ceiling of Weir's studio - Photo by Barry McCormick Stars on the ceiling of Weir's studio - Photo by Barry McCormick](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509122156im_/http://www.nps.gov/ner/customcf/apps/CMS_HandF/Pictures/WEFA_weirstars.jpg) |
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Did You Know?
Painter Julian Alden Weir installed stars on the ceiling of all three of his studios. He had three studios: one in New York City, one in Windham, CT and one behind his home in Branchville, CT. Visitors can still see the stars in his Branchville studio at Weir Farm National Historic Site.
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Last Updated: August 19, 2007 at 11:36 EST |